beach days

The past three days, have been utterly beach days. And ice cream days. (admittedly there have not been too many days this summer that ice cream has not played a part in our day. Or mine at least. I am helpless in the face of a good pint of ice cream. It looks at me with those pleading eyes...you know...the heath bar crunch, the mocha chip, the big chunks of strawberries or blueberries or peaches... or straight up vanilla...I'm happy as long as it's cold and creamy.)  But... beach days. I started off talking about my girl in the water, and not my own obcession with the cold and delicious. (Which now, my girl says she doesn't like. I try not to look at her like she's lost her mind. I'm sure she'll grow out of this one...)

This summer, my big girl has learned to swim. Really and Truely. She is doing things that took me until I was a teenager to do (I was a big huge pansy in the water. I still am.) But my water baby is jumping off the dock, swimming underwater and loving each and every moment of it. She is an incredible swimmer. I have been fighting guilty mom syndrome because she doesn't ride a bicycle yet and we aren't able to spend as much time cooking together as I would like. But, the girl shines in the water. She adores it.
Pretty much every single day this summer, she has asked me if we could either 1.) go to the Mills (the local swimming hole)  or 2.) go to Lydia's and swim in her pool  OR 3.) go to the beach.  Thankfully I have been able to take her swimming tons this summer, as has her dad on weekends.
I am trying to fight off my guilt by understanding that this girl does what she wants, when she wants. The other stuff will come when she is ready for it. I'm sure someday she'll want to cook more then a scrambled egg (which by the way, she can do, as long as I crack the egg...) and someday she'll want to ride her bicycle. But for now, I am content to watch my little fish swimming and reading her ENORMOUS pile of library books. (Weekly she pulls home her weight in library books from the local library. It's really very funny. And she'll disappear for hours with my old piles of Tintin comics.)